I just watched this interview with Joe Rogan. I find both of these guys to be really thoughtful and interesting. I tend to share many similar viewpoints with each of them. Definitely well worth the watch. The second half is particularly interesting. Jordan Peterson is discussed for those of you interested in that.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

As to Ben, I follow him on twitter. He makes some good points, and some I disagree with, and he occasionally sinks into misrepresenting or being smarmy to score a cheap shot. But he’s just a pundit. Like a Sean Hannity, Van Jones, or even a Jordan Peterson, he’s not investigating and reporting on hard fact, and he’s not engaging in empirical research. He exists in a medium about which the door to listenership is that what he says FEELS right to you.

One thing behavioral research has been very consistent on over the decades is that pundits don’t change minds, minds selectively enjoy pundits (this phenomenon exists beyond the political sphere, extending to self help books, rules for living....even scientists are susceptible to this bias when looking into scientific fields outside their own expertise). In other words, we pick the pundits that articulate our feelings, turning personal perceptions and emotions into “factual”-feeling intellectual arguments. No one can be described as closed off or stupid for rejecting a **pundit**. If anything, it’s probably most important that a person avoid allowing such people to represent too high a percentage of their political and intellectual being.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

As to Ben, I follow him on twitter. He makes some good points, and some I disagree with, and he occasionally sinks into misrepresenting or being smarmy to score a cheap shot. But he’s just a pundit. Like a Sean Hannity, Van Jones, or even a Jordan Peterson, he’s not investigating and reporting on hard fact, and he’s not engaging in empirical research. He exists in a medium about which the door to listenership is that what he says FEELS right to you.

One thing behavioral research has been very consistent on over the decades is that pundits don’t change minds, minds selectively enjoy pundits (this phenomenon exists beyond the political sphere, extending to self help books, rules for living....even scientists are susceptible to this bias when looking into scientific fields outside their own expertise). In other words, we pick the pundits that articulate our feelings, turning personal perceptions and emotions into “factual”-feeling intellectual arguments. No one can be described as closed off or stupid for rejecting a **pundit**. If anything, it’s probably most important that a person avoid allowing such people to represent too high a percentage of their political and intellectual being.

I do not totally endorse him or agree with everything he says. I think he's a cool dude who makes clear and concise points, who is OK with disagreeing with people and people disagreeing with him. I like how he's able to have an even tempered, productive discussion with someone like Sam Harris, with whom he disagrees on many topics. The idiots I'm referring to are the types that call him anti-Semitic and the like without proper justification, the same types, by the way, who hurl upon Jordan Peterson, with whom I also do not completely agree all of the time, outrageous, completely incorrect accusations.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

As to Ben, I follow him on twitter. He makes some good points, and some I disagree with, and he occasionally sinks into misrepresenting or being smarmy to score a cheap shot. But he’s just a pundit. Like a Sean Hannity, Van Jones, or even a Jordan Peterson, he’s not investigating and reporting on hard fact, and he’s not engaging in empirical research. He exists in a medium about which the door to listenership is that what he says FEELS right to you.

One thing behavioral research has been very consistent on over the decades is that pundits don’t change minds, minds selectively enjoy pundits (this phenomenon exists beyond the political sphere, extending to self help books, rules for living....even scientists are susceptible to this bias when looking into scientific fields outside their own expertise). In other words, we pick the pundits that articulate our feelings, turning personal perceptions and emotions into “factual”-feeling intellectual arguments. No one can be described as closed off or stupid for rejecting a **pundit**. If anything, it’s probably most important that a person avoid allowing such people to represent too high a percentage of their political and intellectual being.

I do not totally endorse him or agree with everything he says. I think he's a cool dude who makes clear and concise points, who is OK with disagreeing with people and people disagreeing with him. I like how he's able to have an even tempered, productive discussion with someone like Sam Harris, with whom he disagrees on many topics. The idiots I'm referring to are the types that call him anti-Semitic and the like without proper justification, the same types, by the way, who hurl upon Jordan Peterson, with whom I also do not completely agree all of the time, outrageous, completely incorrect accusations.

tree_, you're fucked. There's no way to get back into the fold. May the progressive god have mercy on your soul.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

I'm not directing this at you or anyone in particular, but as someone who has considered himself a liberal/lefty for over 10 years, I feel like the left in general is as guilty of this (if not more so,) as the right. Seems to me the culture war took a sharp left turn when Obama was re-elected in 2012, and then the left forgot that it didn't really like the idea of virtue signalling. We always see this data that shows how the general public is aligned better with policies/ideas on the left, yet the GOP runs the federal gov't and most states. I know there are many reasons for this, including terrible voting laws, but there is a bubble on the left these days that is very loud and obnoxious. The ideas aren't the problem, the messaging/mentality are, in my opinion. Neither side engages in persuasion tactics anymore. Nominating Hillary Clinton is a sure sign that you aren't trying to persuade anyone, because we all knew full well that if there was one Democrat in America that could never win over anyone on the other side, it was her. To me, the left today doesn't look much different from the right under Obama. Winning over Millennials, who will dominate this country pretty soon, should be priority #1. And yet somehow they're screwing that up too.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

I'm not directing this at you or anyone in particular, but as someone who has considered himself a liberal/lefty for over 10 years, I feel like the left in general is as guilty of this (if not more so,) as the right. Seems to me the culture war took a sharp left turn when Obama was re-elected in 2012, and then the left forgot that it didn't really like the idea of virtue signalling. We always see this data that shows how the general public is aligned better with policies/ideas on the left, yet the GOP runs the federal gov't and most states. I know there are many reasons for this, including terrible voting laws, but there is a bubble on the left these days that is very loud and obnoxious. The ideas aren't the problem, the messaging/mentality are, in my opinion. Neither side engages in persuasion tactics anymore. Nominating Hillary Clinton is a sure sign that you aren't trying to persuade anyone, because we all knew full well that if there was one Democrat in America that could never win over anyone on the other side, it was her. To me, the left today doesn't look much different from the right under Obama. Winning over Millennials, who will dominate this country pretty soon, should be priority #1. And yet somehow they're screwing that up too.

To be clear, I do not do this. I don't assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person I agree with, I assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who attempt to tarnish the reputation of anyone (whether or not I agree with them), in such an obviously poor faith manner. As far as Ben Shapiro, I just think he's a nice guy who expresses his views honestly.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

I'm not directing this at you or anyone in particular, but as someone who has considered himself a liberal/lefty for over 10 years, I feel like the left in general is as guilty of this (if not more so,) as the right. Seems to me the culture war took a sharp left turn when Obama was re-elected in 2012, and then the left forgot that it didn't really like the idea of virtue signalling. We always see this data that shows how the general public is aligned better with policies/ideas on the left, yet the GOP runs the federal gov't and most states. I know there are many reasons for this, including terrible voting laws, but there is a bubble on the left these days that is very loud and obnoxious. The ideas aren't the problem, the messaging/mentality are, in my opinion. Neither side engages in persuasion tactics anymore. Nominating Hillary Clinton is a sure sign that you aren't trying to persuade anyone, because we all knew full well that if there was one Democrat in America that could never win over anyone on the other side, it was her. To me, the left today doesn't look much different from the right under Obama. Winning over Millennials, who will dominate this country pretty soon, should be priority #1. And yet somehow they're screwing that up too.

To be clear, I do not do this. I don't assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person I agree with, I assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who attempt to tarnish the reputation of anyone (whether or not I agree with them), in such an obviously poor faith manner. As far as Ben Shapiro, I just think he's a nice guy who expresses his views honestly.

God you are a real moron.

_________________

Quote:

Excuse you. This is the internet. There is every reason to shit on it.

If you haven't read a good critique yet of Jordan Peterson it's because you're not reading.

POINT ME TO ONE

Let me Google that for you dot com

Well, when you see a good one, just let me know

Dawg if you want to figure out why JP is a ridiculous charlatan you can Google it. There was a good one in Viewpoints mag by Shuja Haider, there was another one recently in the Times Review of Books, I think the NYT profile of Peterson is a good takedown of his ideas (ask yourself, what would socially enforced monogamy actually mean?). But you've already read at least one of those and not come away with even a sliver of doubt, so I'm not going to bother dredging up links.

I will read these. I'm starting with the Haider one. This is the first paragraph:

Quote:

A specter is haunting North America — the specter of postmodernism. Or at least, that’s what Jordan Peterson would have you believe. Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, has entered into an unholy alliance with all the powers of the alt-right to exorcise this specter. Though he calls himself a “British classical liberal,” Peterson’s appeal feeds into the most reactionary tendencies in contemporary politics. He rose to fame when he was captured on video at a protest on the University of Toronto campus, telling transgender students he refused to use gender-neutral pronouns. He has since joined the ranks of Logan Paul and PewDiePie as a YouTube star. He mostly eschews writing, instead posting videos of lectures online for his primarily young, white, and male audience.

With whom, exactly, has Peterson entered an alliance? Talk about specters... "Peterson's appeal"? He has no control over who follows him. Hopefully, the idiots in his audience listen to what he actually says and work on straightening out their lives. He has had no known encounter in which he refused to call a person by the pronoun of their choice. He argues that it is wrong to enforce this by law, and it's a good argument. Yep, YouTube has many stars, some are idiots. He's written plenty. There's nothing wrong with lectures on YouTube. They are much further reaching.

After reading this paragraph, it's clear this woman has no idea what she's talking about. Therefore, I'm not going to read further.

_________________

Quote:

Excuse you. This is the internet. There is every reason to shit on it.

tree_, this is the third post I’ve seen where you either assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person you happen to agree with. Always assigning assumptions of stupidity, extremism, or inattention to people who disagree with you makes you look closed off and desirous of an echo chamber, and thus you lessen the value of your own endorsement of the very people you are trying to promote.

I'm not directing this at you or anyone in particular, but as someone who has considered himself a liberal/lefty for over 10 years, I feel like the left in general is as guilty of this (if not more so,) as the right. Seems to me the culture war took a sharp left turn when Obama was re-elected in 2012, and then the left forgot that it didn't really like the idea of virtue signalling. We always see this data that shows how the general public is aligned better with policies/ideas on the left, yet the GOP runs the federal gov't and most states. I know there are many reasons for this, including terrible voting laws, but there is a bubble on the left these days that is very loud and obnoxious. The ideas aren't the problem, the messaging/mentality are, in my opinion. Neither side engages in persuasion tactics anymore. Nominating Hillary Clinton is a sure sign that you aren't trying to persuade anyone, because we all knew full well that if there was one Democrat in America that could never win over anyone on the other side, it was her. To me, the left today doesn't look much different from the right under Obama. Winning over Millennials, who will dominate this country pretty soon, should be priority #1. And yet somehow they're screwing that up too.

To be clear, I do not do this. I don't assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who disagree with a person I agree with, I assign bad faith or lesser intellect to people who attempt to tarnish the reputation of anyone (whether or not I agree with them), in such an obviously poor faith manner. As far as Ben Shapiro, I just think he's a nice guy who expresses his views honestly.

Man, what a joke that whole thing is. “You’re a candidate for office who could have any snippet of a moment turned into a campaign ad against you. I’m a conservative blogger who benefits from any public perception that I have been elevated to the level of debating with candidates for office. Debate me coward!”

And now it’s devolved into weirdos like Charlie Kirk upping the numbers, like “look, this uppity bitch won’t talk to us no matter how much money we give her!”

Enjoy, respect, and agree with most of what Shapiro says. But like McParadigm, I believe he's become a pundit at this point. He makes valid and logical arguments, but instead of trying to convince a person with rational thought, he's further widened the divide. I follow him on social media and none of it seems to want to bring people together. At least not anymore. He's just become another product of celebrity.

Jordan Peterson, on the other hand, has the nice middle ground. He listens to peoples viewpoints and beliefs, acknowledges it, respects it to a degree, and then counter argues.

ETA: Meant McParadigm.

Last edited by StonyGold on Sat August 11, 2018 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.